Foreign and Defense Policy

As a student of the Founders and the Constitution, a teacher of US Government, and as a twenty year Air Force veteran, I understand the importance of a strong defense and a rational and wise foreign policy.

I believe that the number of military bases, the amount of military spending, and the number of men and women in uniform deployed around the world do not always make us safer, when politicians are pursuing policies that are not well defined. Fewer troops, improved weapons systems, and better bases in the right places could save money, and make this country more secure. I’ll work for wise and Constitutional defense policies. I’ll demand, in the name of our children who we send to fight, that our wars are constitutionally declared by the Congress, not by Obama or a group of bureaucrats, and that they are prosecuted to win, and our young men and women return home as heroes.

I embrace a foreign policy that is what George Washington desired, “Entanglements with none and free trade with all.” In this way, we increase our friends and their prosperity, along with our own, and ultimately reduce and isolate our enemies. Our foreign aid to other countries should be largely eliminated, as US foreign aid in practice, only takes money from the poor people here at home, giving it to wealthy and often corrupt government bureaucrats abroad.

I stand with Israel in asserting its sovereignty, its right to defend itself, and its right do as it wishes without any undue influence from the United States, as its foreign and military benefactor. In this, I am in complete agreement with the current leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. As I work to eliminate Israel’s dependence on the $5 billion it receives annually from the American taxpayers, eliminating foreign aid will also eliminate the many tens of billions that we send each year to Israel’s potential adversaries including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, and Pakistan among others.

Like all Americans, I am concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons around the world, including in Pakistan and possibly Iran. For the Middle East, our best strategy may be to simply ensure that Israel has the automony to act in its own defense.

The net effect of foreign and military aid is no different than the effect of domestic welfare here at home. For most recipients, it encourages welfare dependency and warps the local urban and rural economies. Similarly, aid to other nations actually weakens and distorts their economies while depriving Americans from using this badly needed resource at home. As your representative, I will use my lifetime of patriotic military service to work in every way for a wiser, more Constitutional, and more cost-effective defense and foreign policy.